I beg to differ. Our entire economic infrastructure is so heavily fossil fuel based that it is fantasy to believe that renewable sources will have any noticible impact in the next 10-20 years. I view the companies in your link as posturing for their public image and any possible gov't contracts. What would have a real impact is if we decided to replace every fossil fueled electric generating plant with nuclear. What do you think the chances of that are?LongWayHome said:
And you can tell the difference how? Because some folks have created models that predict man-made climate change, even though they really don't understand the causes of natural climate change?McBrew said:
Why do you insist on positing this false choice? You pretend as if the choice is as simple as "spend trillions for a limited chance of sucess or spend nothing and everything will be hunkey-dory."TornadoRed said:
Have you been following the debate in the European Parliament about limiting CO2 emissions to 120 grams per km in 2012? (The European industry average was 161g/km in 2005.) France and Italy are gung-ho about this, as most Renaults and Fiats can probably meet that limit. Germany is strongly opposed, as it would devastate Mercedes, BMW, and especially Porsche. One out of seven jobs in Germany depends on the auto industry.LongWayHome said:
Apparently the point of my post slipped by you. You act as though the pronouncements of doom and gloom (such as a 3 foot sea level rise) are facts when in actuality they are GUESSES.nicklockard said:Have you ANY remote idea how incredibly crippled our economy will be by sea levels rising 3 feet???! Even over 50 years...Trillion$ and Trillion$ of infrastructure, roads, land, resources will be covered in water.
That doesn't sound scary to you?
Wake the **** up!!!
We do have the choice of doing nothing. Or at least doing nothing that's extremely expensive or harmful to our economy, until more is known.nicklockard said:
Reasonable estimates of how much the mean sealevel might rise in the next century are within the normal range of daily tides. So if you are building something within one or two feet above the high-tide level, you might want to build it just slightly higher. That is, if you are building something to last 100 years.
What, I'm the one spreading fear? Fear of what? Fear that the sky is not falling?
No no no. If you do that, you will increase your rate of respiration and exhale even more CO2. Don't do that! Better that you should just sit quietly and try not to breathe too much.fixer said:
So say you. I call them predictions. If lame-O Johnson from the intarweb made them, then yes, I'd call them guesses, but these are way more than 'hi-I'm-lame-O-Johnson-and-I-pulled-this-outta-my-butt' guesses. Trying to equate these predictions which are based on massive volumes of data to your everyday variety of hair-brained guesses is just intellectually dishonest.fixer said:
There is a HE|| of a lot we can do in the short term. Conserve! It has the biggest EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) payoff of all methods. There are no energy production methods that come remotely close to the EROI figures obtainable by simple demand reductions! And yes, I support nuclear, especially advanced nuclear designs such as PBR's and Accelerator-Driven fast reactors (see this thead)fixer said:
It would take far too long to get into it here, but suffice it to say that I think humanity will probably fail this test. To vastly simplify my position, think we should simply let true market forces work and let fuel rise to $8/gallon diesel. That alone will do more than any other proposed solution, IMO. But, market forces are extremely warped by our government's spending, in this year's proposed budget, an amount for defense equal to the combined defense budgets of the rest of the entire world!! If the cost attributable to maintenance of oil rights, fighting 2.5 wars on 3 fronts, and keeping the Suez canal open(40% of the world's oil transits through there, and guess what? The two biggest recipients of US largess in untold hunreds of Billion$$$ of aid are Egypt (#1) and Israel (#2)....dum dum dum....guess what Sparky? They border the Suez!!! Hello? Anyone? Am I the only guy on the planet that can see this obvious connection??fixer said:
No, my friend, the Pentagon damn sure sees it.You are right. Kyoto is dead. End of story. As I said before, simply paying the true price of oil and not hiding massive subsidies in the form of illegal taxation of the populace (income taxes) will raise the worldwide price of oil to its true market-percieved level and that alone will do more than any agreement or treaty, which would only be flouted anyway, as you said. Removal of indirect, hidden-yet-compulsory subsidiese would raise oil prices to their true market-percieved level which will in turn raise prices of all commodities including but not limited to: coal, metals, gas (methane, propane, butane), foodstuffs, bulk items... Initially, many countries would simply go on a coal binge...but simultaneously they would HAVE to impose energy reductions/restrictions or face economic suicide.fixer said:
On that note:TornadoRed said:
YOU claim change will be extremely expensive, but as many have pointed out, we could work it to our advantage, get in a leadership position, and LEAD, show the way, and make money in the process. If you were diagnosed by a dozen competent doctors as having a 90% certainty of getting lung cancer in the next 15 years, would you simply wait until that many years had passed to see if the prediction was a bad guess? Or would you ACT, get out in front of the looming problem, and try to do something about it?TornadoRed said:
OMG, please just look at an elevation map of the North American continent. Next, add up the cost of drowned land, roads. Add up the cost to restructure port facilities, bridges, tunnels, irrigation channels to control back-flow, aquaducts...and redredge navigable channels, etcetera. Hell, a 3 foot increase in mean sea levels would bury a huge portion of Florida, Texas, Georgia, Missisipippi! Please don't be obtuse just for the heck of it.TRed said:
You're trying to sow fear of science, ration, reason, and clear thinking. You're trying to muddy the waters of intellectually robust debate by positing false choices. You know dang well what you're doing, but what I want to know is, why do you do it? What gain is there? Just be intellectually honest. I can respect you if you say your choice is to just 'let it all play out as it comes, come hell or high water', but don't try to pretend that you don't actually understand the choice you are making. Doing nothing and sitting on fences IS a choice. Not deciding to do something IS a decision...not a particulary constructive, instructive, nor useful decision, but it IS a decision/choice none the less.TRed said:
I'm aware of this story. Frankly, it's interesting, but I don't think it backs up the assertion that there will be an economic collapse as a result of curbing carbon emissions. There are automakers who are doing quite well by producing more efficient vehicles. Maybe they are on to something. If there is a demand for more efficient vehicles, they will be produced. Some automakers will thrive at this and others won't. It doesn't mean the whole industry will collapse. This story gave you an opportunity to take a potshot at the French. It doesn't really prove anything. It's curious that Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche are all mentioned in the article. What about VW?TornadoRed said:
Let me try to come up with a better analogy. Suppose your doctor, during the course of an examination, tells you he's a little confused about something. He's not sure if it's a problem, or if it's entirely natural. And if it is a problem, he doesn't know if it's serious, or minor, and he can't rule out the possibility that it might actually be beneficial. In fact you might even live longer and healthier because of it!nicklockard said:
Actually, no. I mean yes, quite a lot of low-lying swampland might be inundated. But no, there aren't that many critical infrastructure elements that are currently located in these low-lying areas.
I reject your premise, so I will merely say this:
Basically what the European Commission is trying to do is the same as the California Air Resources Board. Regulating CO2 is the same as imposing fuel efficiency standards (which CARB has no authority to do, but the European Commission can do anything it wants).LongWayHome said:
nicklockard said:
Yes, I have. You know what would probably be better? They should drop all emissions controls. Imagine how that will help the economy! Start putting T.E.L. back in gasoline! Let gas stations keep using tanks that leak GALLONS per day into the ground! They'll save so much money! Let power plants and factories spew as much toxic crap into the air and water as they want... we'll save money on our electric bill!
Well, since we know that some climate change is natural, and some is man-made... let's ignore it all! To hell with it! Hopefully, all the consequences will occur after we're dead. F*** the future!
Yes.
Well, we've screwed that up beyond repair. I'm hoping we can actually stop (or slow) what is happening to the climate.
These are not guesses put forth by middle school kids. These are professionals, who are using all the data at their disposal to come up with the best prediction for what will happen. There are uncountable factors when trying to predict weather and climate change. However, we (not me, the experts) can do it pretty well... well enough that whe they say it is going to rain, you take an umbrella. When they say it is going to be cold, you wear a coat. You don't say, "Nah, they're just guessing... I'll wear shorts!"
Only about 55% of humans have the necessary microbes in their digestive tracts to produce methane. Farts are mostly nitrogen.
False analogy. The body of evidence is mounting; no amount of squirming away from evidence, presenting charlatan paid liar fiction author's meandering, non-sequiter random conjectures as equals to scientific evidence is going to counter the large and growing body of evidence.TornadoRed said:
Here I agree with you to a large extent, but I think you're also conveniently overlooking what happened during Hurricane Katrina...now imagine the results when water levels are 3 feet higher. You call most of Lousiana low-lying swampland as if it has no value...Many millions of people and hundreds of billion$ in invested infrastructure and business would beg to differ with you. Also, the other major implication of the reports on global climate change is that rainfall and precipitation patterns seem to be altering dramatically; low altitude areas will experience less precipitation and desertification in some areas, and higher altitude areas will see increased precipitation.Tred said:
Pure hooey! YOU got into your professor's private business. He did not make it public. You admitted you could be wrong...yup, you are very wrong. Funding follows sucess in peer reviewed publications. Sometimes funding arises outside the purely academic/research arena. When I worked at PNNL (summer internships), our department was the most well funded: National Security Division--(Chemical and Radiological Sciences Group.)Tred said:
You don't watch much Discovery Channel or History Channel, do you?Tred said:
Let me make it easier, instead of GUESSES, how about WILD SPECULATION. These professionals using all the data at their disposal come up with the best prediction for what will happen and it is just WILD SPECULATION. It is laughable to equate forecasting the weather a few days out with predicting climate change over decades. By the way, your weather forecast analogy makes my point. If the weatherman said 3 weeks from now there will be a blizzard in New York City would you believe him? How about if he "predicted" it to occur 1 year, or 5 years from today?McBrew said:
Perhaps. Perhaps not.RabbitGTI said:
Ok, they are both theories. However, based on high school physics class, I can pretty well predict how long it takes for a ball bearing to drop 50ft due to gravity. I think you probably can too. But collect a handful of random climate "experts" and ask them to individually predict the climate 100 years from now, and you will get a handful of widely varying answers. Which will be correct, if any?McBrew said:
Unfortunately, when you read what they will do with the money it is somewhat disappointing. The initiatives they want to fund could likely be funded from existing revenus. I fear this is the beginning of a trend where carbon taxes are levied in the name of the environment with the proceeds being used for who knows what. Sort of like the way proceeds from the tobacco litigation were used by many states to balance their budgets.BioDiesel said:
That was my point -- I thought I knew him very well. But his personal political views were never expressed in the classroom or during office hours. That is why I mentioned it, because that sort of thing is very rare today. Now it's all politics, all the time. And not just the liberal arts faculty, Political Correctness has undoubtedly crossed over into the hard sciences.nicklockard said:
When the Earth was cooling in the 1960s and 1970s, there were many models that explained why the cooling was expected to continue.GoFaster said:
Have you ever studied any hard sciences? I find your claim here absurd. My professors never talked politics; in fact they studiously avoided it and bent over backward to be objective. This is just pure conjecture on your part. HogwashTornadoRed said:
Urban Myth. Hogwash.TornadoRed said:
